Friday, May 30, 2014

A friend of mine reluctantly joined a religious dating website, and after a few weeks, she concluded that every user in the community was either a freak or a potential psychopath. She asked my opinion, from a blogger's perpective, and i quickly refuted her argument. I cited the numerous highly intelligent and useful contacts i have built up over blogging years, and presented a shiny case for social-media. I agreed that...yes indeed, a dating website is more likely to draw a certain category of colorful characters, so she would be better off switching into a less ambitious community - such as an online interest group or a blogging platform.

I preached about how within such less obtrusive groups, people are more real and less inhibited, so you get a better chance of navigating the inner depths of a person before taking any step into the grimmy worlds of italian pasta, red wine and first date etiquettes. In other words, sift through the nutballs online to find the soul that appeals to you, before putting on a dinner dress. I told her it really just makes life a little easier, just as long as you're on the right online platform.

In retrospect, i realize i was talking a lot of bull&%$t. Not because i don't believe it is entirely impossible to fall in love with an online acquaintance, but because i briefly forgot the simple morale from the T.V show #CatFish, i.e, the fact everybody online either puts their best foot forward, or worse still, wears an entirely different bodysuit that belongs to someone else.

Take my blogger friend Musco for instance. Now i know personally that Musco is of the same generation as i am, and also as with the most charming Lara...that generation of blearly eyed wanderlusts, who are constantly searching to attain somethig shinier than the existence currently at hand. Given that they both share an uncommon lust for flight terminals, travel air-miles & foreign languages, i have always had a fleeting thought that Musco & Lara would hit it off easily....and what's to say that they didn't? Since the two were easily on my Google+ contacts, let's imagine hypothetically how easy it was to hook up a google hangout and leave the rest to fluid conversation and fate. So who says fairytales do not happen on shared common grounds of blogger templates.

That story might be the only one success story i have recently encountered of love across blinking cursor lines, or it might simply be a concoction of blurred truths and an over-active imagination - in other words, a #catfish, just like my friend concluded about many online interactions. Who's to tell, except either of the two people involved? And what's the point, you might ask? I think the point is how i have lately realized a certain naivety that i have held on to, which links to this challenge i'd accepted - to
go on a quest in search of brand new blogs.

I find that my bleary eyed quest is similar to the strong opinion i'd presented to my friend - to go ahead and fall in love with a blogger. Not out of uninformed naivity, but more sensibly searching to find a new blog that truthfully allows the real person behind the cursor to spill unfiltered into the pages - like an unsolicited random conversation with someone else on the other side of the pond. I'd said to her, go and fall in love, not with just another new ambitious blogger. But instead, the one at the other end of the cursor who is waiting to tell you how annoying his day was, right down to the dirty insignificant details of the chunk of cauliflower wedged in between his teeth, which he noticed only after that crucial office presentation was over. And about his older boss who discretly admitted that she thinks about him more often than is appropriate, and how he wasn't sure if to be flattered, flustered or upset at the potential grounds for sexual harrassment. Who knows where the roads of attraction may lead.

Now if this one kind of person existed for every other blogger with a penchant for emotional connection on a literal level. And if such online platforms were a finely blended playground of cunning linguists and honest merchants, then i wouldn't be struggling to find a good new blog to present as a monthly review. And more importantly, my friend would not have come back to me saying she had a look through my suggested online platforms, and all she found were a dry dribble of gossip pages and meaningless nonsense. Like a tired blogger ranting rubbish about online romance at 1am...

So, is it even possible to fall in love with a blogger then? Who knows, and who cares really. I am afterall properly hitched now, so thank you for not asking me ;)

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Monday, May 5, 2014

Newsflash:
This life you're living....
that's your life.
Yes, your life.
The only one allocated to you.
This is it.
Newsflash uh?

So kick your legs in and make the best of it. All of your wanderlusting and daydreaming...
Just stop.
Seriously. Just stop it.
Don't let your own life pass you by
In the midst of it all...

And don't forget to live in neat concentric circles
where at the Core lies you.
Love you first.
Followed by that inner circle of friends and family.
Choose wisely.
Every other interaction does not deserve a sleepless night.
So stop it.
Seriously, Just stop.